Hawley-Braun bill to declassify lab leak intel passes Senate

WASHINGTON - Senator Mike Braun and Senator Josh Hawley's bill to require the Biden administration to declassify U.S. intelligence related to the link between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the COVID-19 pandemic has passed the Senate. 

First introduced in April, the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2021 Wednesday passed the Senate by unanimous consent. 

Senator Braun on the bill: 

Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal revealed three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report.

Though many scientists, including former CDC Director Robert Redfield, have been outspoken about the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic began with a lab leak, the media and others have denied that possibility from the beginning.

Now that it is clear that the lab leak theory is completely viable, Americans need real answers.

We will not get those answers from another botched investigation from the World Health Organization, or more cover-ups by China’s Communist regime.

Americans have been through so much from this virus. Many of us have lost friends and loved ones, many have lost businesses they’ve spent their lives building.

President Biden must declassify all U.S. intelligence related to any link between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the COVID-19 pandemic, so that independent researchers and the American people can get answers.

This bill will make sure that Americans and independent researchers have all the information available to them on this issue that matters so much both for those who have been affected by this pandemic, and for preventing the next one.